A few more bits of Christmas cheer

Creative Trust’s latest Tool Kit Creating the Program contains critical paths, criteria and processes, program components, and decision-making policies from Working Capital for the Arts that will help you design and carry out a program that delivers on your goals and intentions.

The Better Buildings Partnership (BBP), at the City of Toronto’s Energy Efficiency Office, has just launched a Loan Repayment Reserve Fund, providing low interest loans and/or investments to implement energy retrofits and renewable energy projects. Non-profit arts organizations are eligible and urged to apply. More details here; contact George Canetti of the BBP [email protected]; or (416) 397-9217 for application details.

Nothing makes people happier than being acknowledged by their peers for their good work. If you know someone whose leadership, activism, and service have contributed to the development and strengthening of arts and culture in Ontario, you’ll be glad to know that the deadline for Nominations for the 2014 Sandra Tulloch Award for Innovation in Arts and Culture has been extended to December 19, 2013. It’s a wonderful award, given in honour of an outstanding contributor to our arts scene. Full award guidelines and nomination forms can be found here.

Been wondering how to bring your Treasurer, Auditor, or bookkeeping firm closer to the realities of managing an arts organization in an ever-more complex world? Here’s a wonderful way to get them involved, using their business and financial smarts to really benefit the entire arts and nonprofit sector: ask them to help you stop proposed counter-productive changes to Accounting Standards. The implications for your organization and others are detailed in the ONN’s submission. Bill Kennedy, from ONN’s Accounting Standards Working Group, adds more in his post, “Fighting for Nonprofit Accounting Principles”. There’s an easy template for them to use, and if they tweet or post they can do that too: Here’s copy to easily tweet and post on this important issue.